The Cartographers’ Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be admired, examined, learned, and discussed. Our membership consists of professional designers and artists, hobbyists, and amateurs—all are welcome to join and participate in the quest for cartographic skill and knowledge.

Although we specialize in maps of fictional realms, as commonly used in both novels and games (both tabletop and role-playing), many Guild members are also proficient in historical and contemporary maps. Likewise, we specialize in computer-assisted cartography (such as with GIMP, Adobe apps, Campaign Cartographer, Dundjinni, etc.), although many members here also have interest in maps drafted by hand.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ. You will have to register before you can post or view full size images in the forums.

[WIP] Moonless Falls

Hey everybody!

So I've taken a bit of mapping break recently, and my poor tablet has started gathering dust. THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO PASS

Therefor, I've started a new mapping project. I have a wonderful adventure in mind for my friends to play through, but I found I was lacking any suitable on-hand maps for one particular encounter area, a shrouded, rocky mountain waterfall pool. What's a person to do?

I haven't drawn a waterfall before, so this might turn out hilariously bad. We'll see. Hopeful I might get some pointers as I go.

Here is the starters, the rocky wall area where the waterfall will be located.

Busy busy week, didn't get to work on this at all. Finally got back to it for a little bit tonight. Outlined the pool area, some of the random stones in the water, and the outline of the small island that will be in the middle of the pool. Colors might change as this goes, and the shading might need a bit of work, we'll see how things look as I start adding vegetation and the water.

The nib on my tablet pen is starting to wear out. I hope it can hold on until I'm finished with this.

Thanks for the input SG, indeed they are very bright/saturated. I will definitely be modifying the hue and brightness later in the process, once I have a better feel for the overall color and tone of the image.

Worked some more on this today, focusing mainly on the groundscape, plus some clump grasses. Speckled a mixture of bright greens and dark browns liberally in an attempt to depict mossy/grassy, hurray for jitter.

Filled in a placeholder color for the water, all that white was hurting my eyes.

Worked on water today. I'm fairly happy with how my waterfall turned out, though I might try tweaking it later. Of course, I might ruin it doing so.

I could use some ideas on what else people think this map needs/is lacking. I've hit all the important features that make this playable, now its time to toy around with the little art things (color levels, shadowing, border, grungey overlay, ect.)

If the falls are fast flowing, maybe a bit more "noise"/whitecaps a few feet before the cliff ends and a tiny bit "below" the fall edge, but that's a personal preference....<shrug>.

The only other thing I can see is that the big rock in the center needs something... either a bit more texture/color variation or some more shading to make it more roundy.. right now it's solid "flat" with a flat color and just kind of sticks out in the close up.